Peter Dovski described the ship as full of 20,000 containers, "like a very heavy whale stranded on the beach." The initial rescue plan included using tides, distributing ballast water and lifting with the help of eight tugboats, but he said it might be necessary to strengthen salvage work. "At present, the pressure on river bottom sand is very high, and we may need to reduce the load, including the combination of container unloading, oil pumping, drainage, sand pumping and tugboat towing. However, removing fuel and containers and dredging operations will require additional heavy equipment to be transported to the site, which will increase the salvage time. "
There is no consensus on the estimation of the time when the "long thorn" becomes shallow, ranging from a few days to several weeks. Wu Ming (pseudonym) is the captain of a large container liner company in China and has sailed through the Suez Canal many times. He said, generally, the 38th lunar month is the day of high tide. According to this calculation, there will be a tidal height of 2. 1 m at1am local time on March 29th, which is the best time to take off in shallow water, because the buoyancy is the greatest.
At the same time, dredging the sediment at the bow and stern of the excavator is helpful to reduce the resistance, discharge the ballast water from the ship, extract some oil from the fuel tank, unload some goods and so on to reduce the weight of the ship, which is helpful to improve.
Wu Ming pointed out that the 20,000 TEU series ship is the largest container ship in the world at present. This giant container liner brings great challenges to unloading, because the freeboard (the height from the main deck to the waterline) is too high, and it is difficult to find a suitable floating crane. He estimated that it would only take a few days if he could catch up with the high tide, and it might take a long time if he missed it.
Extended data
The loss caused by waterway blockade is about $400 million per hour:
After the "Changci" ran aground on the Suez Canal in Egypt, Lloyd's Daily, a British shipping magazine, tried to make an estimate: after the Suez Canal was congested, 9.6 billion dollars worth of goods were prevented from passing through the waterway every day, and the loss caused by the blockade of the waterway was about 400 million dollars per hour.
The International Chamber of Shipping issued a statement on 26th, pointing out that the continued blockade of the Suez Canal by the large container ship "Ever Given" reflected the fragility of the global supply chain.
Glenn, an economist in chartered institute of purchasing and supply, said that the long-term stagnation of the canal may seriously damage the supply chain. "If goods have to be transshipped through Africa because of congestion, this may delay the delivery time of British enterprises by more than 10 days." Glenn said, "If this happens, it will inevitably lead to a shortage of goods and an increase in consumer inflation prices."